Augur (REP) was one of the small handful of tokens to record price gains over the twenty-four period on Saturday, climbing 7.35% over the course of the day.

The price movement comes amid a busy time for the Augur prediction market, which is currently inundated with open political bets in the run up to the U.S Midterm elections, as well as markets predicting the price of Ethereum (ETH).

Augur Price on the Move

The valuation of Augur’s REP token climbed 7.35% on Saturday, rising steadily throughout the day from $14.41 to $15.47.

Interesting to note is that the price hike manifested without any increase to trade volumes, but rather with a decrease. REP volumes fell from $2.4 million to $1.8 million from the morning through to the evening.

Rising market prices coinciding with falling volumes is often considered the sign of an impending trend break, which for Augur could possibly mean another dip to the $14.00 support it has held for the past week.

The majority of REP buys over the course of the day came against BTC, primarily on Binance. Over 60% of REP’s daily volume has passed through BTC, with only KRW (Korean won) and ETH making any supplemental impact.

REP tokens are currently up 11% for the week, and 37% since the dip on October 12th. Augur surged earlier in October when details of Augur’s upcoming v.2 upgrade were released.

While the Augur v.2 upgrade is expected to hit some time before the end of the year, no timeline has been set as of yet. However, Augur’s prediction market seems to be drawing customers in the meantime.

Augur Prediction Market Heats Up

The Augur prediction market hit its highest number of users in October, when it logged just over one thousand unique users. At the same time, the total number of transactions on the platform hit an all-time high of over seven thousand.

Such numbers might appear small compared to the millions who have been using other crypto-based platforms, such as the Brave browser or the Steemit social media site. However, Augur relies on the somewhat technically minded to fully utilize its features, so those numbers don’t tell the whole story.

In fact, the upcoming upgrade to Augur is set to directly address its perceived lack of user-friendliness.

U.S Midterms and Ether Predictions

Currently, the two most popular markets on Augur revolve around the U.S Midterms and the future price of Ethereum.

Just over half a million dollars has been staked on the question of which party will control the House after the 2018 U.S Midterms. The same dollar amount has also been staked on whether or not the price of Ethereum will exceed $500 by the end of 2018.

For the record, 66% of gamblers say the democrats will control the house. Only 9% say Ethereum will exceed $500 by the end of the year.

Disclaimer: The author owns bitcoin, Ethereum and other cryptocurrencies. He holds investment positions in the coins, but does not engage in short-term or day-trading.